Men on Her Mind (1944)

Director:

Wallace Fox

Writer:

Raymond L. Schrock (writer)

Release Date:

12 February 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Musical

Plot:

Cast

Mary Beth Hughes	...	Lily Durrell
Edward Norris	...	Jeffrey Wingate
Ted North	...	Jim Lacey
Alan Edwards	...	Roland Palmer
Luis Alberni	...	Alberti Verdi
Kay Linaker	...	Eloise Palmer
Claire Rochelle	...	Mayme Munson
Lyle Latell	...	Big Joe Munroe
Claire McDowell	...	Mayme Munson
Eva Hamill	...	Gracie Tuttle
Isabel La Mal	...	Miss Wiggins
Lane Chandler	...	Frank Tuttle

Runtime:

67 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Alexander-Stern Productions

Great if you want to see lots of Mary Beth Hughes!

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This movie is not a musical! There is singing, but it's only because the main character wants to be a singer. Rogers and Hammerstein, it ain't!

Lily Durrell (Mary Beth Hughes) is an orphan who wants nothing more than to be a singer, but everyone else is telling her that she should get married before she pursues a singing career and men propose to her left and right.

The movie starts out after Lily has already achieved her fame. She's singing on the radio and has three fiancés—the rich-but-kind-of-old Roland Palmer (Alan Edwards) who really helped her launch her career, the rich, young and passionate Jeffery Wingate (the underrated Edward Norris), and the shy music teacher Jimmy Lacey (Ted North, Mary Beth Hughes' real-life husband). On her rough road to stardom she somehow got engaged to all three of these guys, then ran off as soon as each of them really started to get serious.

After she sings, each of her long-lost fiancés visits her, then she flashes back to when she was still living at the orphanage. The problem is that the movie doesn't do anything to let us know that the movie is flashing back, so it gets really confusing. Lily leaves the orphanage when she turns 18 to pursue a singing career, even though the orphanage lady tells her she should get married first. Lily hitches a ride with Joe Munroe (Lyle Lattell), a simple, redneck truck driver who finds Lily quite attractive. When she reveals she's looking for a job to pay for vocal lessons so she can be a singer, Joe tells her that a woman's place is in the home, but helps her get a job and sort of becomes her boyfriend (or something). After a while he proposes to her, but, not ready to commit and kind of put off by his family's simple, redneck ways, she flakes out (I can't really blame her) and runs away to some other unnamed town.

When Lily arrives at the next town, she auditions to sing at a night club. Right after she gets the job, the club owner walks into the next room, is murdered, and Lily runs away. She goes to secretarial school and gets a job working for Roland Palmer, a rich dude who's always giving money and cake and ice cream to crippled children. He's probably in his 50s, but becomes very attracted to Lily. So much that he decides tp pay for her vocal lessons and help her achieve success. Lily is reluctant to accept such gifts from him, but eventually does. Sounds peachy? Right? So of course something crappy has to happy. Roland's sister thinks Lily is just a gold digger and makes various threats. So, of course, Lily runs away. Again. At this point, we are treated to some stock footage that was also used in I Accuse My Parents, another 1944 PRC movie Miss Hughes starred in.

On her way, Lily runs into Jeffery Wingate, a rich young man who was conveniently just dumped by his girl. He takes Lily out for coffee and helps her get a singing gig at a night club. They fall in love, of course, and Jefferey proposes and gives her an expensive diamond bracelet. And because things are going great, the movie decides to crap all over Lily again. The next morning there's a headline in the paper about a jewel thief. Who stole a diamond bracelet. Lily jumps to conclusions and runs away yet again.

At the bus station, Lily runs into Jimmy Lacey, who is a music teacher with an inferiority complex who works at a school for girls and thinks Lily is Miss Andrews, the new PE teacher. Lily goes along with the story and does a bang-up job as PE teacher. And Miss Andrews never calls or shows up, so everything's going great. Jimmy and Lily become good friends. Jimmy shares a song he composed with Lily and finds out she can sing. Lily tells him he needs to have more confidence in himself.

Then . . . Mr. Palmer shows up after searching for Lily for several months. He has a job for her . . . to sing on the radio!! This is a big deal, so Lily takes him up on his offer. When Lily leaves, Jimmy proposes to her (people got engaged at the drop of a hat in the '40s!), but she turns him down, saying she couldn't give up this opportunity for just love in a cottage with a lowly music professor. So she leaves and . . .

Flashback to the present! Lily is famous and she's sitting in her lavish dressing room. She has dates with Jimmy, Roland, and Jefferey scheduled . . . but who does she pick?

She picks Jimmy. And the movie ends. I think I would've picked Jeffery (oh, and he didn't steal the bracelet, by the way), but that's just me.

This movie was made by PRC, who was a "poverty row" movie company. The same year she made this movie, Mary Beth Hughes was also in _I Accuse My Parents_ and _The Lady Confesses_ for PRC. All three of these movies have a lot of the same background music and some stock footage. They're all pretty low-budget movies.

A must if you love Mary Beth Hughes. The copy I have isn't the highest quality (it's a little shaky and the sound is fuzzy at times), but it's better than nothing. It's too bad Ms. Hughes never achieved much fame, because she was a really talented lady.